Taser diversifies its arsenal

Proto-RoboCop

The iconic maker of stun-guns aims to take policing into cyberspace

YOU know you have made it when the name of your firm mutates into a verb, as with Google and Hoover. A recent addition to this select group is Taser International. To be “tasered” is to be briefly paralysed by an electrically charged dart fired from one of the firm's stun guns, usually by police seeking to pacify someone without resort to firearms. But the firm hopes it will soon come to mean much more.

The device's success has been electrifying. In the 15 years since it first came on the market, it has become an essential bit of kit. It is used by 14,000 of the 18,000 law-enforcement agencies in America, along with many foreign ones. “Half the cops in America carry a Taser as well as a gun,” says Rick Smith, Taser's boss.

Having come to dominate what Mr Smith calls the “less-lethal weapon space”, Taser has begun a burst of rapid-fire innovation that could, he believes, turn it into a business with sales of $1 billion a year—ten times its current size. Last June it launched the XREP (extended range electronic projectile), a wireless device that can be fired from a shotgun to zap someone up to 100 feet (30 metres) away. Unlike the pinprick caused by the original wired dart, which has a range of up to 35 feet, “this will leave an ugly mark, but it won't kill you,” says Mr Smith. In November it launched the X3, a semi-automatic stun-gun that allows three shots, “in case the first one misses”.

The biggest innovation, however, has been sparked by the controversy Tasers cause. In November there was outcry after a 10-year-old American girl was tasered by police called in by her mother when she refused to take a shower. Police have so often been accused of using Tasers gratuitously that the firm started fitting them with digital cameras that recorded every firing. This “Taser-cam” got the firm's boffins thinking: why not equip police with cameras that can record entire incidents (not just the brief moment when a Taser is used) and even beam the recordings instantly back to the higher-ups at headquarters?

The result is a “tactical on-officer network computer” called AXON, which is being tested by several police forces in America. Recordings are uploaded to a restricted website, evidence.com, to be viewed by approved personnel. Mr Smith says that the creation of a sort of “secure YouTube of global law enforcement” could be beneficial both for the public, who would get more accountable police, and for officers on the beat, who could be vindicated more quickly if falsely accused of brutality. But the biggest winner would be Taser, which expects to charge $1,700 for the hardware, plus $99 per device per month to manage all the data.